Skepticism and the memo controversy

Man. There is a TON of stuff out there on this. I have been bopping from source to source to source. Here is another:

http://www.flounder.com/bush.htm

First off, before I start getting a lot of the wrong kind of mail: I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate.

* * *

The probability that any technology in existence in 1972 would be capable of producing a document that is nearly pixel-compatible with Microsoft’s Times New Roman font and the formatting of Microsoft Word, and that such technology was in casual use at the Texas Air National Guard, is so vanishingly small as to be indistinguishable from zero.
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Double-ouch.

I cannot verify the man's qualifications right off, but his purported resume appears impressive and a brief search on google did not turn up anything inconsistent.

N/A

I have to get back to work -- I'll do some more lookign later.
 
Dorian Gray said:
So Corplinx, these documents are forgeries while the claims against Kerry are all true. Got it. Nice and unbiased.
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Point to where I claimed the SBVT claims are all true.

You just made what I call the "Douchebag Untruth Fallacy". Its where you claim somethign flatout untrue, which you _should_ know to be untrue.

I don't see why people want repricosity on the SBVT deal. Admitting that CBS receiving poorly forged documents doesn't mean you should validate or invalidate any other point of view.

I call that the "Petty Retardo Fallacy".
 
As I remember type-writers, there were always the occasional weak-strike of random keys, caused by not hitting it hard enough with your fingers. This would cause a letter to appear lighter, naturally.

There would also be randomly raised characters caused by shifting of the roll-bar. Actually, not that random- it would often be the very next letter after any capital. Even electric type-writers would misfire in this way.
 
Remember, never attribute to conspiracy what is perfectly explainable by stupidity.

It seems that what happened here is that they thought they had a scoop... so if there was anything wrong with the evidence, they didn't want to hear about it--it would ruin a good story.
 
Of course considering how easy it would have been to improve this fraud is suspciously bad.....

(note self being back at uni may induce paranoia)
 
"Bush is an excellent aviator."

"I'm not going to rate Bush because he hasn't been here during the rating period."

Can anyone explain to me why these two statements are allegedly contradictory?

(Just in case someone doesn't get the reference, Colonel Killian's widow has said that her husband had a high opinion of GWB. This is allegedly evidence that the memos from Colonel Killian were forgeries.)

There are an awful lot of folks out in the blogosphere who think these memos could have been made on readily available typewriters of the time. Stand by for more news.
 
I agree with you about the lack of skepticism. Then again, skepticism is in really short supply here. Maybe not as short as elsewhere, but still pretty short.

As for the documents themselves. My first conclusion was that they were obvious forgeries. However, my father owned an IBM Executive typewriter, and there is some evidence that the military acquired a large number of these. That they should have found their way to the National Guard by the early 1970s is consistent with military practice, which dumps hulking behemoths on the Guard. My father's IBM Executive had a sans serif font, but I think there were serif font models as well. An IBM with a serif font could have produced these memos, and the baseline misalignment suggests that they were produced by a typewriter.

The political implications, I think, cancel out, because some forged memos could either hurt the Democrats or the Republicans. So I think it's fairly easy to approach the issue dispassionately.
 
Epepke,

Among bloggers that I found by apprpriate googling, the IBM Executive was the leading candidate for the typewriter on which the "forged" memos were produced.

We'll have a definitive answer by the middle of the week. Either a news organization will produce a good copy made on an available typewriter, or they won't. Either way, we will have our answer.
 
And that answer will be that these documents could have easily been forged last week, using a 30 year old typewriter.

Until CBS releases the originals to independent forensic examiners, and until there is an explanation about Staudt, finding a typewriter is meaningless.

At least to skeptics.
 
crimresearch said:
And that answer will be that these documents could have easily been forged last week, using a 30 year old typewriter.

Until CBS releases the originals to independent forensic examiners, and until there is an explanation about Staudt, finding a typewriter is meaningless.
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No; it's not meaningless. It's inconclusive.

It's meaningful because it directly addresses the claims that the documents must have been forged because they could not easily have been produced or would have been unlikely to have been produces with technology available to the National Guard in 1973. Skepticism most safely should be about particular claims.

Furthermore, skeptics have an extra burden to do things that normal people find hard. If it is shown that these could have been produced and were likely to have been produced in 1973, there is an onus upon skeptics to eradicate from themselves any bias to conclude that they were forged based on the contraindicated claim.

You're right in that finding an explanation about Staudt would be important for the larger question about whether the documents are forgeries. However, if the typographic evidence be disclaimed, then the investigation on a skeptical level should proceed just as if the typographical evidence had never been suggested.
 
crimresearch said:
And that answer will be that these documents could have easily been forged last week, using a 30 year old typewriter.

Until CBS releases the originals to independent forensic examiners, and until there is an explanation about Staudt, finding a typewriter is meaningless.

At least to skeptics.
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I disagree. If a typewriter available at the time can reproduce the same mix of font/features, it may not be conclusive, but it would prop up CBS's credibility immeasurably.

Its defense so far has been abysmal -- including some claims that border on disingenious/misleading. I assume that if the models being touted could reproduce the memos as well as people appear to assume, we'd know it. The sites I have looked at have not just talked about the features available -- they've experimented. As shown by the last link, however, the results do not appear to bolster the CBS claim, as yet. There may yet be tests that show otherwise.

The Selectric Composer, a $4,000 machine (in 1973 dollars), could reproduce some of the anomolies talked about, but the type fonts did not match up.

Additionally, in order to get a subscript with a different size font, the operator must:

(1) Type the letter with the normal character ball;
(2) Lever up the carriage half a space;
(3) Open the machine and remove the 12 pt character ball;
(4) Replace it with an 8 pt character ball;
(5) type the superscript;
(6) open the machine up and swap out character balls again;
(7) lower the carriage and go back to typing.

That was just to superscript a 'th' in typing the 111th.

At some point, you have to think a non-typist -might- just skip that process and type '111th' without the superscript, even if he chose to use a $4,000 machine to type a 'memo to file.'
 
:...There may yet be tests that show otherwise."

If anyone knows of such tests, that can conlusively tell the difference between a 30+ year old document, a new document made on a 30+ year old typewriter, and one made on a computer WITHOUT HAVING THE ORIGINAL, I'd love to hear about it...

;)
 
crimresearch said:
:...There may yet be tests that show otherwise."

If anyone knows of such tests, that can conlusively tell the difference between a 30+ year old document, a new document made on a 30+ year old typewriter, and one made on a computer WITHOUT HAVING THE ORIGINAL, I'd love to hear about it...

;)
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Well, for example -- the copy held by CBS has not been dated -- the paper can easily be tested to determine when the copy was made.

If the copy was made 15 years ago, that's one thing. If it was made 6 months ago, then it suggests that the original document was around six months ago -- that is completely different, and will add interesting questions about where the original is now.

The ONLY thing that can move this forward, realistically, is for CBS to release their documents for testing by independent experts. If CBS refuses to do so, I (personally) will have no choice but to hold it against them.
 
NoZed Avenger said:
The Selectric Composer, a $4,000 machine (in 1973 dollars), could reproduce some of the anomolies talked about, but the type fonts did not match up.
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I don't buy the Selectric Composer hypothesis. Even normal Selectrics were uncommon in the military at the time.

Additionally, in order to get a subscript with a different size font, the operator must:
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This is backward reasoning. Common superscipts and subscripts were available on many typewriters. I am not absolutely certain that my father's Executive had superscript "st," "th," "nd," and "rd," but I believe it did. I know that it had the vulgar fractions, the cents symbol, and the copyright symbol. The Executive had a whole bunch of extra keys to the right of the semicolon. Even my old Underwood portable, which didn't even have a separate "1" had quite a few characters that would be considered special characters today.

We're not talking a superscripted "hey non nonny and a hot cha cha" here; these were things that were common even on monospaced typewriters of the time.
 
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

We've all heard it, and most of us have said it.

Let's think about the claims related to the memos.

Claim:

George Bush used family connections to get into the National Guard. Near the end of his term there, he wanted to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. After going to Alabama, he was marginal in his attendance, and barely met requirements. In fact, he didn't actually meet all the requirements, but his superiors let it go and honorably discharged him.

This claim is not extraordinary. We knew all of this before the memos.

Claim:

CBS News obtained memos that substantiate the claims above.

This claim doesn't strike me as extraordinary. People do keep copies of weird things. In my opinion, this strikes me as a tiny bit extraordinary, just because any time a document shows up suddenly after a long search, you have to ask how is escaped notice for so long, and then suddenly appeared, just when it was needed. If CBS expects people to believe this, they will have to do better than saying, "We have an anonymous source, but you should trust us because we're CBS." Furthermore, we know that the documents could be forgeries.

The proper skeptic's stand is to acknowledge the possibility of forgery. On the other hand, these memos aren't worth forging, but that is just my opinion. I am inclined to believe they are real, but I would be failing in my skeptical duty if I were to reach some conclusion that depends on the authenticity of these memos as the only supporting evidence. If the memos had some sort of bombshell revelation that would sink the Bush campaign, then a good skeptic would have to dismiss the claims until greater proof was given.

Claim:

Someone forged these memos.

That, to me, is an extraordinary claim. It alleges criminal activity, or at least activity that is civilly actionable. A good skeptic ought to avoid jumping to a conclusion without "extraordinary proof".

Do we have "extraordinary proof"? It seems to me that we have extraordinary proof that these documents could have been produced with Microsoft Word. We don't have extraordinary proof that they were produced that way. If the "proof" we have were all that "extraordinary", there would have been a whole lineup of document experts who, having had four days to examine the evidence, available to agree with Ms. Lines. We don't have that.


More blog-searching reveals the most likely candidate typewriter, based on the opinions of bloggers I have read. The IBM Executive, Model D.
 
And all you have to do to buy into that argument, is to completely and repeatedly ignore the fact that Col. Staudt had been retired for 18 months when the memos claim he was involved in these events.

I predict that after the refusal to admit to this discrepancy OR produce the originals, cycles a few more times, we will start to hear the chorus of "the 'anti-memo bunch' has been thoroughly discredited".
 
Let me see if I understand, Crim.

Are you saying that "extraordinary proof" has been presented, and that the memos have been conclusively demonstrated as forgeries?
 
corplinx said:
If you haven't seen good evidence that these are forgeries, you should try opening your eyes.
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Right, you knew all along, and nothing could change your mind, eh?

Gosh, that sounds like a true believer to me.

Are they forgeries? I hope nobody is that stupid but it wouldn't, frankly, surprise me if they were.

It's like the swifties. Chuckie Colson strikes again.
 
crimresearch said:
If anyone knows of such tests, that can conlusively tell the difference between a 30+ year old document, a new document made on a 30+ year old typewriter, and one made on a computer WITHOUT HAVING THE ORIGINAL, I'd love to hear about it...
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Well, sure there are, but they'd require a scan of the original at a maginfication of about 100x. Preferably two scans with light from separate directions.
 
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